The DARkWIN project
Pollinator-assisted plant natural selection and breeding under climate change pressure
Funded by the Horizon Europe - EIC PathFinder European Innovation Council Work Programme
(HORIZON-EIC-2022-PATHFINDEROPEN-01-01)
Grant agreement N. 101098680.
The concept
DARkWIN's concept integrates both the classical human eye selecting the healthiest genotypes under stressful environments (where darkener/greener plants are usually selected: DARk-plants win), and the darWINian pollinator bee vision where the most rewarding flowers from the healthiest plants will be naturally selected.
Interdisciplinarity
With the aim of finding a radically new path in high-throughput plant phenotyping, selection, and breeding, DARkWIN integrates transversal disciplines of electronics and robotics, greenhouse technology, crop physiology, agro-ecology, entomology, flower metabolomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics, and genetics, to develop a unique platform for pollinator assisted plant phenotyping and natural selection under environmental pressure for breeding decisions.
